A guide to selecting the right
Customer Data Platform for your business
Know your customers (or suffer the consequences)
The customer is in charge.
The age of the omnichannel
consumer is in full swing
as expectations rise
around the ability to shop
with maximum flexibility
and minimum friction.
It’s almost as if consumers
want retailers and CPG
companies to know what
they want, when they want it,
where they want it delivered,
and how they would like to
pay for it.
These expectations are
becoming the new normal,
and organizations who fail to
recognize this, run the risk of
becoming irrelevant.
The good news is that you don’t
have to be left to the mercy of
the ever-changing consumer,
and you certainly have access
to some powerful tools to help
you turn these challenges into
game-changing opportunities.
At Neal Analytics,
we have developed a
very straightforward
framework to help our
customers thrive in the
customer-centric era,
and the first step in
the process is all about
improving the internal
capabilities to know
your customers.
2 | Know Your Customers
The Customer Data Platform
3 | Know Your Customers
Data sources Insights Action
Internal
External
Analytics
AI & ML
Visualization
Apps
Automation
Engagement
Data unification
Ingest
Map & Match
Merge
Enrich
4 | Know Your Customers
Here are four critical
factors to consider
when evaluating
your options.
What to look for when choosing a CDP
Breadth of pre-built data connectors for ingesting data
The primary purpose of a CDP is
to collect and unify customer
data from as many different
touchpoints (i.e., data sources) as
possible. The ease with which
you can connect to and pull data
from these internal (ERP, CRM,
PoS, Customer Loyalty/Support,
and other martech tools) and
external (social media, public
information, third-party tools
such as marketing automation
ones, etc.) data sources will play
a significant role in how fast
you’re able to build out holistic
and robust customer profiles. It’s
also crucial that the chosen CDP
provides you with the flexibility
to create custom connectors to
so that are no limitations on the
types and sources of data that
you can integrate.
This ability to create custom
connectors will allow you to use
existing internal and external
data sources to enrich customer
profiles by unlocking current
customer data already in your
systems: loyalty programs,
customer support systems,
billing, and more.
| Know Your Customers
1
Can be easily managed and maintained by your marketing organization with very little reliance on IT
Once the initial data connections have been
configured and tested, the rest of the configuration
effort should be something that marketers can
perform on their own. It allows them to configure
the solution to meet their specific needs while
reducing the time and costs associated with the
deployment of a new application.
2
| Know Your Customers
| Know Your Customers
Provides a secure and trustworthy customer data environment
Given the nature of the data involved, a CDP
must adhere to the highest standards for data
security and compliance. Solutions should
provide data encryption between integrated
systems and data sources while maintaining a
secure authentication environment.
Data is immediately actionable
If your CDP can take on some of the baseline
capabilities like segmenting customers and
calculating marketing-defined metrics
(such as Number of Purchases higher than
$100), the faster and more effectively your
marketing team can leverage this data in
their campaigns.
Of course, it’s also crucial that the CDP
provides access to the raw data so that you
can apply AI and Machine Learning (ML)
models for more advanced use cases.
3 4
| Know Your Customers
Released to General Availability in April 2019, Dynamics Customer Insights takes the value
proposition of CDPs to the next level by augmenting CDPs basic functionality with a suite of
advanced features that enable a faster time to value, more complete customer profiles, and
a lower cost to deploy with less reliance on IT and consultants.
Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights
| Know Your Customers
Provide contextual customer insights embedded into existing business processes and applications
360 degree view of customer
Business end users
Enable data analysts to radically reduce time to value & Total cost of ownership (TCO) and enable scale
through self-serve AI/ML
Enable Internal Stakeholders
Admin
Be “the” source for truth for customer data & insights
Grow Customers’ Business
Business Analyst
In addition to the core capabilities expected of a CDP, here are some of the key features of Dynamics Customer Insights
Enrich customer profiles with aggregated
audience intelligence from Microsoft
proprietary sources like Microsoft Graph
Leverages the Microsoft Common Data Model
to provide a consistent and common language,
enabling applications to read and understand
the data being shared between them
Extensive library of pre-built data connectors
Easily and quickly build custom business apps
with embedded customer insights using
Microsoft PowerApps
Automate processes by setting up workflows
in response to customer actions and signals
using Microsoft Flow
Gain deeper insights by leveraging the
out-of-the-box connector for Microsoft Power BI
to customize reports and dashboards that meet
your business needs
Add powerful predictive analytics capabilities
with Microsoft’s AI and ML platform.
| Know Your Customers
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights key product capabilities
11 | Know Your Customers
Unlock and unify *all*
customer data across
all sources
Build semantically
rich & cleansed data
Eliminate data silos and unify customer data
Data gravity around
customer entity enables
the best AI/Insights/KPIs
Accelerate the
process through
quick start “templates”
Enablepowerful AI & Insights
Enrich customer data
with high value signals
from Microsoft (e.g. Office)
Enrich customer data with Microsoft proprietary signals
Customizable profiles
& segments to drive
business processes
Infuse OOB consistent
“card” experiences in
D365 apps
Enable LOB experiences
to be built through
Power* platform
Power your business processes
Neal Analytics –Your trusted partner in enabling the customer-centric enterprise
| Know Your Customers
In Conclusion
| Know Your Customers
con tac tus@nea lana ly t i c s . com
www.nea lana ly t i c s . co m
425 .822 .2332
11911 NE 1s t St . Ste 206
Be l l evue WA 98005
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